


Kintsugi

by Liddells



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:41:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liddells/pseuds/Liddells
Summary: "Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum."Not broken, merely held together by the most precious parts of his identity.Harry has Dissociative Identity Disorder, the split in his mind mirroring the scar on his forehead. As time went on and he experienced abuse at the hands of the Dursleys, he developed alters meant to keep him safe from them. He doesn't know about the others yet - but he will soon.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	1. Bambi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to make sure that everyone reading this is staying safe while they do so. At the end of each chapter, I’m going to put a list of the triggers that come up in that chapter and also mark which alters were fronting during the chapter because each person handles trauma and traumatic thoughts differently. The way an adult thinks about things is going to be different than the way a young child does, for example. Their different mindsets could be different levels of triggering for different people, and I want to make sure you can all make the choices that are right for you!

When Bambi cleans, Harry sleeps. Bambi moves around the house on sock-clad feet, toes hitting the ground first to muffle the sound of each step, and she wobbles slightly as she strains to reach the tallest shelves. Gray snow falls from the ceiling fan as it's dusted. It's a tainted, dirty version of something pure - like them. But they can't think about that, so Harry sleeps and Bambi cleans. When she’s done, everything will be clean; the only stains will be the bruises on their knees and palms from working all day and the persistent anxiety that twists and turns in their gut at night. Maybe if Bambi does a good enough job, the Dursleys will compliment her work - or at least stop yelling at Harry until it’s time for him to make the family dinner.

Their head hurts after they yell at Harry. Their head always seems to hurt when they switch out suddenly, the curious boy thrown back into the cupboard in their head, the timid girl stepping forward to protect them, head bowed as they insult her, call her a freak, spitting out the body's name regardless of who's looking out of bright green eyes. But it's okay if it hurts; hurting is what most of them are meant for. Hurting is the foundation of their life, the bricks that make up #2 Privet Drive, the strands of their DNA rooted in trauma and heartbreak. Shattering like a wine glass thrown at their head when Petunia has too much to drink. Their head hurts.

Bambi shakes her head, one trembling hand coming up to press against their aching temple. _Go back to sleep, Harry._ The headache recedes as Harry moves further from the front, and Bambi goes back to cleaning, hands still shaking slightly as she wipes a damp cloth over the lamp that triggered Harry in the first place, the lamp that Vernon had threatened them with months before, the one that makes their body shake every time they clean it. But she keeps it clean. She keeps the house clean and she keeps them safe - as much as she can, at any rate.

By the time she's done for the day, exhaustion burning in sore muscles, Bambi limps slightly as she returns to the cupboard under the stairs. She hopes that in the morning, Petunia will reward Harry with indifference rather than spite. It's his eleventh birthday tomorrow, and this is the only gift Bambi can give him. A tiny shred of hope wrapped in tear stained rags.

When Harry wakes up, there are new blisters on his hands. He's used to that, though, like how he's used to forgotten conversations, the blur of weeks and months when time slips through his fingertips, the haze that drops over him whenever things get too overwhelming. They're a little worse than normal, and his back is sore and stiff when he sits up, but he's not concerned; Harry gives himself a few extra minutes to stretch out the worst of it as he mentally prepares himself for the day.

It's his birthday, which didn't mean much. If he's lucky, it will mean that Harry gets a pair of mismatched socks as a gift; if he's unlucky, it will remind the Dursleys how much of a burden he is, and they'll respond with more chores, angrier tones, and the inevitable sentencing back into his cupboard under the stairs. If he's very very unlucky, it will mean new bruises, the taste of blood in his mouth, and more holes in his memory that he's too exhausted to question. But he can’t think like that - literally can’t sometimes. His thoughts go all fuzzy around the edges and sound faintly like crying if he tries for too long. So instead he dresses himself in his cleanest set of patched and too big clothing and then heads for the kitchen. Maybe if he makes breakfast without being told to, he’ll be allowed to have some of it and not just the scraps that the family leaves behind.

The kitchen is silent and empty when he arrives, toes of his bare feet clenching against the ground as if that could keep him from slipping into despair as he carefully eases open the fridge, heart beating fast at the thought of it creaking and waking the others up. His breath quickens, vision going slightly blurry, and then it evens out. _Harry._ Bambi soothes as she steps into the front with him, reigning in some of his panic responses. _You’re okay._ He can’t hear her, not really, but he calms anyways as her sure fingers open the fridge and scoop up the eggs he needs.

By the time Harry feels like himself again, breakfast is done. Eggs, bacon, and toast with jam are all done precisely when Petunia likes them to be. All that’s left to do is fetch the mail, pour the juice, and wait for the others to come and eat their fill. At that point, if he’s good, maybe he’ll be allowed to eat too.

He goes to get the mail, not worrying about tiptoeing quite so much this time; his family is awake now, and they’re less likely to be mad that he made noise. If anything, they’ll use it as an excuse to come inspect the table he laid and make sure that it’s good enough. If he’s good enough.

Harry gathered the pile of letters that laid before the door, rifling through them absently, checking to see if any of them would make Vernon mad so that he could go in prepared. It was better, or perhaps worse, than political fliers this time. A creamy white envelope was labelled with his name across the front. Worse still, it listed his address as “the Cupboard Under the Stairs”. Harry had been told from a very young age not to tell others where or how he lived, not to let them know how much of a freak he was, not to tell them how wrong and dirty and broken he was, that his poor family had to take him in and put him there when he was such a burden on them. They would know he was bad, they said, and they would pity him or hurt him. But, Petunia had impressed on him many times, they would not believe him, help him, or care about him. That is what his family was for, and it was very important that he listen to them and follow their orders.

So Harry shoved the letter into his pocket, knowing that it would be in his best interest to destroy it before his aunt or uncle saw. It was dangerous and unknown, and Harry was eager to survive the day with minimal yelling. As he came back into the kitchen, feeling uncertain and anxious, he forced a smile for the two adults that were now seated at the table. “The mail came.” He announced as he set the more mundane envelopes in front of Vernon. “I’ll go pour the juice.” The boy began to turn, only to be stopped by a meaty hand around his wrist. “Sir?”

“There’s a letter in your pocket.” His uncle was clearly unyielding but not yet angry, and Harry prayed to every god that it stayed that way. “What is it?”

“It’s just rubbish.” Harry mumbled, panic settling into his chest again. He reached back towards his letter, angling his hand to hide it from view. “I was just going to throw it away for you. It looks like some nonsense from the school or something.”

“Don’t play with me, boy.” Vernon snapped, grabbing Harry’s wrist again and yanking it aside. “You don’t get to decide what is or isn’t trash in this household. Know your place; you’re the only rubbish here. It’s probably some letter from the school telling me you’ve gotten yourself in trouble again, and you think you can avoid the punishment for it just because it’s your birthday.” He yanked the letter from the boy’s pocket as Harry drew his sore wrist close to his chest. “But I know better. I know what kind of things your kind try to get away with. Why, your kind-” And then he finally saw the envelope, face turning dark red as he shoved it towards Petunia for her to see. “ **_BOY_ ** .” He yelled as he stood up from the table, sending the chair flying backwards as he pushed up from his seat. “What have you _done_?”

Everything was starting to go black, which must have been a panic attack. The last thing Harry knew before it washed over him was that he could hear his body crying, could faintly feel that it was shaking. “ _I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be bad. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to be such a freak._ ” The words were in his voice, but he didn’t remember saying them, didn’t remember anything except his knees buckled and the shrill voice of Petunia asked Vernon what they were going to _do_.

When he woke up, there were new bruises along his collarbone, and his knees were scraped raw. A note on the door - not in any of the Dursleys’ handwriting, but not in his either - pleaded with him to stay in bed and rest for as long as he could. For once, he is so exhausted that he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The alters that Harry has right now are as follows:
> 
> Harry - He’s the host (the person who “fronts” most and interacts with the world). He suffers abuse and neglect from the Dursleys and has a spotty memory around it.
> 
> Bambi - She’s the cohost (she also fronts often, with or without Harry) and tries to stay quiet and clean so the Dursleys won’t hurt them. She deals with their emotional abuse.
> 
> Boy - This is a “fragment” who takes in the more extreme emotional and physical abuse from the Dursleys. He doesn’t have the ability to be calm or happy. Whenever he is fronting, he is acutely upset and triggered; he always thinks the system is unsafe, even when that’s not true, and blames himself for abuse.
> 
> Rosie - She’s a little, which means a child alter, who doesn’t front around the Dursleys and doesn’t know anything about abuse except for things like that the system has to stay quiet to stay safe. She doesn’t have memories of acute abuse.
> 
> The Dursleys emotionally and physically abuse Harry. Harry is not sexually abused. Another character / system that Harry meets at Hogwarts will have a history of childhood sexual abuse; I plan to write their story as a separate fic in the same collection and encourage people to only read what’s safe and comfortable for them.
> 
> The alters in this chapter are: Harry, Bambi, and Boy. The topics include neglect and abuse from the Dursleys and how the system avoids that.


	2. Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hagrid comes to get them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said last chapter, the main trigger warnings for the chapter and the main alter(s) who front will be listed in the end notes! Stay safe, drink some water, and wear a mask!

The Dursleys had been yelling for days. Things had quickly gotten worse since his first letter arrived in the mail, and time had gotten hazier for Harry as the days went on. Letters started showing up in strange places - spilling down the fireplace, shooting out of the fridge when Bambi opened it to start breakfast, even falling out of an egg as it was cracked. Each new impossible trick had Harry realizing that the letter had been sent from a school of witchcraft, and that the school wasn’t the joke he’d first assumed it was. If he stayed on those thoughts too long, or listened to Vernon too much, Harry started to think of himself as a freak, started to think about all the ways that he was weird and broken and bad. 

He thought about the snake he’d somehow set free at the zoo that summer. He thought about the time he was running away from bullies and ended up stranded on the school roof. He thought about the way his memories slipped from his grasp whenever he tried to cup them in his hands and hold them close. He thought about the times he’d lingered over his reflection and thought about how it didn’t mirror the features he expected to see, or the times that he’d seemed to age since the last time he saw it, or that there were new bruises looking back at him from tired eyes and he didn’t remember getting them. He thought about blistered hands, the smell of cleaning solution on his clothes, and not knowing how he made the breakfasts that he did each morning. He thought about unexplainable, impossible things.

His head hurt.

Their head always hurt when the Dursleys yelled at them. The walls of their mind threatened to buckle under the force of Vernon’s wrath as each new letter was found; their head throbbed and ached constantly, distractingly and painfully overwhelming as Harry scrambled to adapt. For the first few days, the Dursleys stayed at home, boarding up their windows and trying to stop the flood of impossible letters. Their anger came out in streams of sharp, bitter words directed at the frightened eleven year old. They called him a freak. They called him bad. They yelled at him from across the house and had him join in on the hunt for more letters to burn. And all the while, they told him that it was his fault.

“I don’t know how you did it, boy, or how they found you, but you are  _ never _ going to their school of freaks.” Vernon had said one morning as he put up another board over the fireplace. Each slam of his hammer made Harry’s body ache in the memory of abuse, in the afterimage of being hit and thrown around and pushed down the stairs -  _ and where did those thoughts come from? The Dursleys weren’t always a happy family, but Harry didn’t remember being hurt like that. Did he? _ “We took you in out of the goodness of our heart and this is how you freaks thank us? If they wanted you, they should have kept you instead of dropping you off on our doorstep like the rubbish you are. But they didn’t want you. Why would  _ anyone _ want you?”

Harry’s vision was blurring, and so was he. Bambi struggled to stay at the front and exert her calming presence on them, but their breath was starting to catch in their throat, tiny sobs spilling out from between their lips as tears splashed down their face. Their body trembled, the first wave of a panic attack threatening to overwhelm them like the tide washing over the beach, building up until it couldn’t be forced back.

“They chose to give you up, and we took you in out of the kindness of our hearts, despite knowing what a pair of no good freaks your parents were, despite knowing what a freak you might turn out to be, and we set out to make you as normal as possible, and now they’re trying to ruin everything, just like they always do.” Vernon’s ranting was picking up steam, but Harry could barely understand him at this point; his knees felt like they were about to give out. “I knew we should have done more to beat the weirdness out of you.”

“ _ I’m sorry. _ ” Boy bit out through his tears, wrapping his arms around himself, shaking from head to toe as he ducked his head, tucking his chin against his chest. He swayed, rocking himself to try to soothe the sobs falling from his lips. Vernon always yelled when he cried, but he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t make it stop. Everything was bad and it was his fault. He was bad and it was his fault. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t know how to make it stop. I would make them stop if I could. I’m sorry.” 

The resulting slap across his face only drew more sobs from the frightened alter, leaving a red imprint behind. “I’ll give you something to be sorry about.” Vernon promised, and then everything dissolved into hazy shadows.

The next time Harry opened his eyes, they were on a boat. Even Boy wasn’t entirely sure when that had happened; everything had been so overwhelming for every step of the journey until that point. While Boy already viewed himself as a freak, no one in the system was at all prepared for handling a situation as strange, impossible, and disorientating at this. Magic didn’t exist, and they couldn’t possibly have it. Maybe if they just kept following their uncle as he dragged the family with him to who knows where, maybe this would all go away. Maybe things would be okay again.

They were all soaked through from the storm, and Harry and Petunia were both shivering from the cold wind biting against their damp skin. “Vernon, darling-” she started, wishing for the hundredth time that week that she’d never taken in her sister’s son, “-what if we just-”

“No.” He cut her off, not for the first time that trip. “We’re going someplace that no one can find us with their freakish letters and owls and nonsense.”

Vernon was wrong. A giant of man named Hagrid showed up within hours of them arriving at the house on the rock; he had a squashed cake in his pocket and carried a bright pink umbrella with him. When he said that Harry was a wizard and Boy panicked about someone else finding out that he was a freak, the man’s hand shot up, umbrella snapping towards Harry’s uncle. “Dursley.” He spat the name out like a curse, voice rumbling over the sound of Boy’s sobs. “I’m taking Harry with me, and if I have anything to say about it, you’ll never see him again. You didn’t deserve to take care of him in the first place, you disgusting pigs.” The massive umbrella swept through the air in an arc and all three Dursleys yelped at once as curly pink tails erupted out of the bases of their spines. 

Gentle, calloused hands reached out for Boy and scooped him up in arms that held him as a baby, that had dropped him off with the Dursleys once, so long again. “I’m so sorry I left ye to them, Harry.” Hagrid said softly - or as softly as he could, at any rate, which still rumbled his chest and felt like a comforting buzz against Boy’s skin as he clung to the half giant, crying into his bushy beard. “I won’t ever do it again, do you hear me? Let’s go home.”

Boy sniffled, wet green eyes going slightly unfocused as the others jostled to the front. A blur looked up at Hagrid, sense of identity lost, suspended in uncertainty. “Home?” They asked softly; they hadn’t had one of those before.

“Hogwarts.” Hagrid replied, ducking his shoulders so he could squeeze through the door frame on his way out. “Hogwarts will always be home to those who need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: mentions of physical abuse of a child, emotional abuse of a child, internalizing of child abuse
> 
> Main alter: Boy (who has internalized a lot of abuse)


End file.
